


Here at the quiet limits of the world

by Dissenter



Series: Cry havoc [9]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Angst, Family, Grief/Mourning, Historical, Prophetic Visions, World War II, death of a family member, wartime Vongola
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-21 00:14:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16148528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter
Summary: Sometimes there's nothing Daniela can do to save her guardians from the destruction of their worlds.





	Here at the quiet limits of the world

**Author's Note:**

> I give you two year old bb Reborn. Isn't he cute. In an unsettling sort of way.

Daniela watched as Serafina sat there with her sister’s son burbling on her lap, looking utterly lost, and she hated how helpless that look in her guardian’s eyes made her feel.

Luca bless him, tried to break the tension. Sometimes she wondered just how sane any of them would be if it weren’t for his simple grounded kindness, for the way he was always watching, to catch the rest of them when they stumbled.

“So what’s this little guy called then?” He asked, with a smile at the child that was totally unforced.

“Renato. His name’s Renato.” Serafina said, with a brittle sort of composure that Daniela knew all too well.

“Renato”, Serafina’s brother in law had said with a dead man’s look in his eyes. “His name is Renato”, and then he’d left and Daniela didn’t need Luca’s gift for prophecy to know they wouldn’t see him again in this life.

He’d stayed long enough to tell Daniela’s Sun that her sister was dead, long enough to hand little Renato over to her, before leaving on a mission they all knew he wouldn’t return from. Daniela had felt half like an intruder on their shared grief. Serafina had looked so very lost, so very old, for all that she only had a handful of years on Daniela herself, and as for her brother in law… Well Daniela knew that look in his eyes all too well, she’d more than enough of it these last few years. It was the look of a broken man, of a man drowning in grief, and there were no words anyone could speak that would make him stay. Not when even the sight of his son, tiny and alone was enough to hold him.

A part of Daniela hated him for that with all of a Sky’s possessive protective rage. After all, he wasn’t the only one grieving, wasn’t the only one whose heart had been broken into a thousand pieces. Serafina had lost a sister just as surely as he’d lost a wife, and it broke Daniela’s heart to watch the way she buried her sorrow under a thousand layers of duty, and purpose, and responsibility, while this man abandoned her, along with every one of his own responsibilities.

Daniela couldn’t claim to be impartial though, not with Serafina’s grief threaded like razor wire through the Sun flames that clung to her own Sky with the desperation of a child in the midst of a nightmare. Maybe she had no right to judge, after all, for all she’d become so intimately acquainted with grief over the course of this war, she had never lost a lover. After all, everyone had a breaking point, what right did she have to say a word when someone else reached theirs.

…

Luca had arrived shortly after Renato’s father had left. He always did have a knack for knowing when he was needed. A soft knock at the door before he entered and as he walked in she was struck again by how heartbreakingly young he was. Wise beyond his years, but he was still just fifteen. Only thirteen years older than the baby Serafina was holding on her lap. He was too young for this, too young, too good, too brave. He deserved everything, he deserved a life free of war and death, a Sky that wasn’t stained red with blood.

He deserved everything, but they needed him. Daniela needed him, and so he’d made a choice, one that she couldn’t afford to refuse, and they would all have to live with.

“What’s his name?” Luca had asked and it had been enough to divert her thoughts and Serafina’s away from death, and towards the tiny fragile life in ‘Fina’s arms.

He was a quiet child it seemed. Manageable. He hadn’t cried once since his father had deposited him in his aunt’s lap, not even when his father had walked out the door. He’d just looked around the room with startlingly clear dark eyes, too aware for the two years he had to his name. But then, hadn’t the war made them all grow up too fast.

He looked so natural in Serafina’s arms. It had been so easy to forget that her Sun had been a mother once, before the war had taken that from her. It wasn’t exactly something she liked to talk about, some memories bit too deep to be brought up casually. But she held little Renato with an ease that could only come from experience, even as Daniela could _feel_ how just the thought of holding a baby again made her want to scream for a grief that would never fade. Serafina’s children had been older than this when they died, but, they had still been her babies, and the pain of it was an open wound that even her Sky couldn’t soothe.

But she wouldn’t break down. She refused to let herself, and Daniela watched as she bit back on the urge to break down in tears. Because she was the adult in the room, the oldest of all of them. Older than Luca, older than Daniela herself, and adults don’t get to cry when there’s things that need doing.

“His name is Renato” she’d said, instead of screaming, and Luca was far too kind to call her out on it.

Instead he bent down to put himself on eyelevel with Renato, who looked back at him with curious black eyes.

“And how are you doing little one?” Renato blew bubbles at him rather than answering, but didn’t look away. He seemed intrigued by the beads woven into Luca’s hair. Undeterred, Luca continued.

“I’m Luca by the way. It means light. Because my family are good at seeing things other people don’t. My sister is called Luce which is a girl version of Luca.” He dropped his voice, and offered a mischievious grin. “They say it’s because we’re twins but _I_ think our mother just wasn’t very good at thinking up names.” Renato tilted his head a little before making a grab for Luca’s beads, Luca only just managed to dodge in time.

“Made a new friend have you.” Constanza drawled from the doorway. "You do remember you were meant to be helping me with the supply paperwork?" For such a… colourful personality she was surprisingly good at sneaking up on people. While Daniela and Serafina glanced over at Constanza, Luca waved her off and carried on talking to the baby.

“Ignore her, she can wait a few minutes.” He said with a smile. “So you’re Renato hmm. Renato the Reborn.” And then Luca’s eyes misted over slightly, the way they did when he was remembering things that had yet to be. It was subtle, a shift that happened in the space it took to blink. Even after more than a year, Daniela almost missed the signs. “Ah, you are a special one aren’t you. There’s a hard road ahead of you, hard and long, and so very very important. You’re going to change the world one day. It won’t be easy but I’m sure you can handle it.”

“Will he be ok?” Serafina demanded, fear for the small life on her knee turning her voice sharp in a way it would never usually be, especially not with Luca.

Luca didn’t flinch though. Just smiled softly.

“Don’t worry. This little one will outlive us all.” The look on Serafina’s face was one of the best things Daniela had seen all day, accompanied as it was by a sense of utter relief bleeding through their bond, that here at last was a family member she wouldn’t have to bury.

Before he turned to go with Constanza, Luca bent to speak to Renato once more.

“You’ll look after my sister for me won’t you? I know you’ll be angry, and she’ll have earned it, but… she’ll need you. I don’t expect you to save her. There’s nothing in this world that could do that, but, please, look after her anyway. Be there. Let her know she isn’t alone.” He paused then, before continuing, almost too quiet to hear. “And tell her I love her.”

With that strange request he was gone, leaving Daniela and Serafina to process the reminder of just how odd seers could be. Daniela loved him dearly, but sometimes, just sometimes, he would say or do something that reminded her how very little she truly understood him.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I wrote this one mainly because I wanted bb Reborn to get some screentime, and then Luca decided that since that's he sister's future guardian he gets a prophecy. (Luca's gift only works on issues that directly relate to people he loves. Unlike Luce's which is tied to the fate of the world). Serafina is Reborn's aunt, he's just been orphaned and now he's been left with her at Vongola's temporary wartime headquarters.


End file.
